Uni technician wins HEA Art and Design Technician of the Year
Higher Education Academy’s Arts and Design Technician of the Year Stephen Calcutt receives his award from former Huddersfield politics lecturer Dr John Craig, who now holds the position Head of Social Sciences with the HEA.
Thu, 12 Jun 2014 11:44:00 BST
Art, Design and Architecture’s Stephen Calcutt named Higher Education Academy Art and Design Technician of the Year
FOR more than a decade, Stephen Calcutt (pictured above) has been working closely with University software and technology. Now he has been named the Higher Education Academy’s Arts and Design Technician of the Year. The award was bestowed at The Lowry in Salford, during the HEA’s Arts and Humanities Annual Conference.
Earlier this year, Stephen became Technical Manager Co-ordinator for the University of Huddersfield’s School of Art, Design and Architecture. Stephen has overall responsibility for the running and functionality of the three different technical support teams within the School. Before that his roles included working as a CAD and IT technician again within School, which meant that he was closely involved with students and staff on a number of innovative projects.
Projects have included Honeypot – a unique design project that is a collaboration between the University’s School of Art, Design and Architecture and School of Computing and Engineering – and ROTOЯ, a series of sometimes provocative and complex exhibitions and installations by the School’s lecturers at Huddersfield Art Gallery.
Stephen’s own first degree was in illustration with animation and on graduation he set up a design studio with fellow students. In 2001, he took up a technical post at the University of Huddersfield, moving to the School of Art, Design and Architecture three years later. He has since completed a Master’s degree in media arts and, in order to keep fully up-to-date on developments in design software and technology, he regularly attends professional development courses, ensuring that he can assist students with their technical requirements.
“I hold workshops, for the Adobe software packages for example, but I provide a lot of one-to-one support for students as well, helping them to realise their projects,” said Stephen. “A lot of students are full of ideas, but can lack the technical knowledge to realise them.”
His work with students has resulted in several nominations in the University’s own Thank You Awards, a student poll which rewards staff members who students feel have gone the extra mile on their behalf.
Stephen has found the student-facing dimension of his role especially rewarding and believes that technical expertise and design creativity go hand-in-hand.
“Certainly, in my field of media arts and digital type, creativity and technical knowledge are equally important because you have to know the boundaries you are operating in. Also, when you learn new things, then that feeds into your own practice. You can learn a new technology and it can spark your creativity.”
